Designing a High Speed GDS Telemetry Repository Using Open Source Technologies
Designing a high speed GDS (Ground Data System) telemetry repository using open source technologies.
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Designing a high speed GDS (Ground Data System) telemetry repository using open source technologies.
The Common Metadata Repository (CMR) contains metadata records describing NASA’s Earth observation data products which are archived across 12 data centers also known as Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). To ensure that NASA’s data is discoverable, accessible, and usable, the Analysis and Review of CMR (ARC) Team, located at Marshall Space Flight Center, assesses the quality of these metadata records. The ARC team currently uses a combination of automated and manual methods to check metadata records for quality dimensions such as completeness, correctness, and consistency. In addition to these quality assessments, the team is currently exploring various metadata scoring methods in order to provide normalized results across the twelve DAACs. This method is conducted by using automated methods to assess metadata fields and then provide a numeric score, or grade, based on the analysis. To implement this process, two different approaches have been theorized and are currently being explored by the ARC team. This presentation will describe ARC's two proposed methodologies in more detail, and the pros and cons to using these metadata scoring methods.
Defining requirements, missions, technologies, and concepts for space exploration involves multiple levels of organizations, teams of people with complementary skills, and analytical models and simulations. Analytical activities range from filling a To-Be-Determined (TBD) in a requirement to creating animations and simulations of exploration missions. In a program as large as returning to the Moon, there are hundreds of simultaneous analysis activities. A way to manage and integrate efforts of this magnitude is to deploy a centralized database that provides the capability to define tasks, identify resources, describe products, schedule deliveries, and generate a variety of reports. This paper describes a web-accessible task management system and explains the lessons learned during the development and deployment of the database. Through the database, managers and team leaders can define tasks, establish review schedules, assign teams, link tasks to specific requirements, identify products, and link the task data records to external repositories that contain the products. Data filters and spreadsheet export utilities provide a powerful capability to create custom reports. Import utilities provide a means to populate the database from previously filled form files. Within a four month period, a small team analyzed requirements, developed a prototype, conducted multiple system demonstrations, and deployed a working system supporting hundreds of users across the aeros pace community. Open-source technologies and agile software development techniques, applied by a skilled team enabled this impressive achievement. Topics in the paper cover the web application technologies, agile software development, an overview of the system's functions and features, dealing with increasing scope, and deploying new versions of the system.
Although the volume of the remote sensing data managed by the Earth Observing System Data and Information System is formidable, an oft-overlooked challenge is the variety of data. The diversity in satellite instruments, science disciplines and user communities drives cost as much or more as the data volume. Several strategies are used to tame this variety: data allocation to distinct centers of expertise; a common metadata repository for discovery, data format standards and conventions; and services that further abstract the variations in data.
Dr. Daniel Winterhalter, NASA Engineering and Safety Center Chief Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, requested the NASA Engineering and Safety Center sponsor a 3-year effort to collect entry, descent, and landing material and to establish a NASA-wide archive to serve the material. The principle focus of this task was to identify entry, descent, and landing repository material that was at risk of being permanently lost due to damage, decay, and undocumented storage. To provide NASA-wide access to this material, a web-based digital archive was created. This document contains the outcome of the effort.
Tracking dataset citations in scientific publications provide multiple benefits: obtaining citation indices for quantitative evaluation of the dataset scientific impact, learning about dataset usage in applied sciences, credits to dataset creators, datasets co-citation relationships and many more.
Astrobiology is a multidisciplinary area of scientific research focused on studying the origins of life on Earth and the conditions under which life might have emerged elsewhere in the universe. NASA uses the results of Astrobiology research to help define targets for future missions that are searching for life elsewhere in the universe. The understanding of complex questions in Astrobiology requires integration and analysis of data spanning a range of disciplines including biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and planetary science. However, the lack of a centralized repository makes it difficult for Astrobiology teams to share data and benefit from resultant synergies. Moreover, in recent years, federal agencies are requiring that results of any federally funded scientific research must be available and useful for the public and the science community. The Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED), developed with a consolidated group of astrobiologists from different active research teams at NASA Ames Research Center, is designed to help to address these issues. AHED is a central, high-quality, long-term data repository for mineralogical, textural, morphological, inorganic and organic chemical, isotopic and other information pertinent to the advancement of the field of Astrobiology.
Astrobiology is a multidisciplinary area of scientific research focused on studying the origins of life on Earth and the conditions under which life might have emerged elsewhere in the universe. NASA uses the results of Astrobiology research to help define targets for future missions that are searching for life elsewhere in the universe. The understanding of complex questions in Astrobiology requires integration and analysis of data spanning a range of disciplines including biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and planetary science. However, the lack of a centralized repository makes it difficult for Astrobiology teams to share data and benefit from resultant synergies. Moreover, in recent years, federal agencies are requiring that results of any federally funded scientific research must be available and useful for the public and the science community. The Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED), developed with a consolidated group of astrobiologists from different active research teams at NASA Ames Research Center, is designed to help to address these issues. AHED is a central, high-quality, long-term data repository for mineralogical, textural, morphological, inorganic and organic chemical, isotopic and other information pertinent to the advancement of the field of Astrobiology.
Astrobiology is a multidisciplinary area of scientific research focused on studying the origins of life on Earth and the conditions under which life might have emerged elsewhere in the universe. NASA uses the results of Astrobiology research to help define targets for future missions that are searching for life elsewhere in the universe. The understanding of complex questions in Astrobiology requires integration and analysis of data spanning a range of disciplines including biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and planetary science. However, the lack of a centralized repository makes it difficult for Astrobiology teams to share data and benefit from resultant synergies. Moreover, in recent years, federal agencies are requiring that results of any federally funded scientific research must be available and useful for the public and the science community. The Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED), developed with a consolidated group of astrobiologists from different active research teams at NASA Ames Research Center, is designed to help to address these issues. AHED is a central, high-quality, long-term data repository for mineralogical, textural, morphological, inorganic and organic chemical, isotopic and other information pertinent to the advancement of the field of Astrobiology.
Documents available from the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) and the World Data Center A for Rockets Satellites are described. The availability, costs, ordering procedures for documents presently available, and the procedures for obtaining future documents are given. NSSDC, established by NASA to further the widest practicable use of reduced data obtained from space science investigations and to provide investigators with an active repository for such data, is responsible for the active collection, organization, storage, announcement, retrieval, dissemination, and exchange of data received from satellite experiments. Information on sounding rocket investigations is also collected.
A flexible database query, update, modify, and delete tool was developed that provides an easy interface to Oracle forms. This tool - the NASA interactive forms type interface, or NIFTI - features on-the- fly forms creation, forms sharing among users, the capability to query the database from user-entered criteria on forms, traversal of query results, an ability to generate tab-delimited reports, viewing and downloading of reports to the user s workstation, and a hypertext-based help system. NIFTI is a very powerful ad hoc query tool that was developed using C++, X-Windows by a Motif application framework. A unique tool, NIFTI s capabilities appear in no other known commercial-off-the- shelf (COTS) tool, because NIFTI, which can be launched from the user s desktop, is a simple yet very powerful tool with a highly intuitive, easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) that will expedite the creation of database query/update forms. NIFTI, therefore, can be used in NASA s International Space Station (ISS) as well as within government and industry - indeed by all users of the widely disseminated Oracle base. And it will provide significant cost savings in the areas of user training and scalability while advancing the art over current COTS browsers. No COTS browser performs all the functions NIFTI does, and NIFTI is easier to use. NIFTI s cost savings are very significant considering the very large database with which it is used and the large user community with varying data requirements it will support. Its ease of use means that personnel unfamiliar with databases (e.g., managers, supervisors, clerks, and others) can develop their own personal reports. For NASA, a tool such as NIFTI was needed to query, update, modify, and make deletions within the ISS vehicle master database (VMDB), a repository of engineering data that includes an indentured parts list and associated resource data (power, thermal, volume, weight, and the like). Since the VMDB is used both as a collection point for data and as a common repository for engineering, integration, and operations teams, a tool such as NIFTI had to be designed that could expedite the creation of database query/update forms which could then be shared among users.
Relational Information Management (RIM) was selected as the data base management system for a prototype engineering materials data base. The data base provides a central repository for engineering material properties data, which facilitates their control. Numerous RIM capabilities are exploited to satisfy prototype data base requirements. Numerical, text, tabular, and graphical data and references are being stored for five material types. Data retrieval will be accomplished both interactively and through a FORTRAN interface. The experience gained in creating and exercising the prototype will be used in specifying requirements for a production system.
Using an ensemble of classifiers instead of a single classifier has been shown to improve generalization performance in many pattern recognition problems. However, the extent of such improvement depends greatly on the amount of correlation among the errors of the base classifiers. Therefore, reducing those correlations while keeping the classifiers' performance levels high is an important area of research. In this article, we explore input decimation (ID), a method which selects feature subsets for their ability to discriminate among the classes and uses them to decouple the base classifiers. We provide a summary of the theoretical benefits of correlation reduction, along with results of our method on two underwater sonar data sets, three benchmarks from the Probenl/UCI repositories, and two synthetic data sets. The results indicate that input decimated ensembles (IDEs) outperform ensembles whose base classifiers use all the input features; randomly selected subsets of features; and features created using principal components analysis, on a wide range of domains.
NASA's GeneLab includes an open-access repository of some 200+ omics datasets generated by biological experiments relevant to spaceflight (including simulated cosmic radiation and microgravity). In order to maximize the intelligibility of these data, particularly for users with limited bioinformatics knowledge, GeneLab is now transforming the data in the repository into actual biological and physiological knowledge of the genetic and proteomic signatures found in these samples. This processed data is being derived by establishing standard data analysis workflows vetted by 114 scientists who are members of the four GeneLab Analysis Working Groups (Animal AWG, Plant AWG, Microbe AWG, Multi-Omics AWG). AWG members from institutes spanning the U.S. and four other countries participate on a voluntary basis. The AWGs meet monthly to discuss data mining, compare results and interpretations, and test forthcoming releases of the GeneLab Data Systems (GLDS). GLDS version 3.0 has been available to the general public since October 1st 2018, and has been providing a professional state-of-the-art bioinformatics platform for everyone in the space biology community to upload their data into a space biology omics data commons, to process their data with vetted standard workflows and to compare to existing analyses. The user interface for the platform is being designed to be accessible to a broad variety of users including those with limited bioinformatics experience, including high school and college students who can use it to learn about omics data analysis and space biology. As such, Genelab will constitute a powerful general public outreach capability of NASA and the Space Biology community at large. Data mining of the GeneLab database by the AWG has already started generating very interesting findings, including reports linking specific spaceflight conditions such as radiation, microgravity or carbon dioxide levels to molecular changes seen across various species. In this presentation, we will report on the current and future objectives for GeneLab, and review recent studies reported by the various AWGs relating molecular changes observed in various animal models and tissue with microgravity, radiation, circadian rhythm, hydration and carbon dioxide conditions.
The design of a third-generation system for integrating computer programs for engineering and design has been developed for the Aerospace Vehicle Interactive Design (AVID) system. This system consists of an engineering data management system, program interface software, a user interface, and a geometry system. A relational information system (ARIS) was developed specifically for the computer-aided engineering system. It is used for a repository of design data that are communicated between analysis programs, for a dictionary that describes these design data, for a directory that describes the analysis programs, and for other system functions. A method is described for interfacing independent analysis programs into a loosely-coupled design system. This method emphasizes an interactive extension of analysis techniques and manipulation of design data. Also, integrity mechanisms exist to maintain database correctness for multidisciplinary design tasks by an individual or a team of specialists. Finally, a prototype user interface program has been developed to aid in system utilization.
The FAIR principles emphasize optimizing metadata, the vast majority of which are textual in nature, and often organized into attribute name-value pairs. This uniformity has led to the development of guidelines and best practices for providing programmatic access to scientific data through their metadata, yielding the first iteration of the FAIR Data Point Specifications (FDPS). A key feature of the FDPS is its support for automated agents seeking and fetching data without first needing to learn a plethora of different application programming interfaces. These software agents can interrogate metadata catalogs that adhere to FDPS in a uniform manner because each catalog describes itself and its metadata schema consistently. This approach enhances the sustainability of data retrieval support, allowing systems to refine and update their metadata schemas as needed and without requiring data-seeking software agents to change how they interrogate FDPS catalogs. An essential aspect of the FDPS is the standardization of data catalog semantics, which formalizes concepts such as “metadata” and “metadata service” and links them to other concepts specifications including the Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT), a W3C standard that is also the basis of NASA-STD-2831 “Metadata Standard for Data Discoverability,” authored by NASA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer. The FDPS references DCAT (version 2) elements which focus on the distribution of datasets and support the goal of stream-lined catalog integration across repositories for improved data discovery. Additionally, the FDPS also prescribe the use of Linked Data Platform elements for data catalog-metadata record containment descriptions, allowing users to ascertain which data and metadata belong to which catalogs. NASA’s Life Sciences Portal is implementing the FDPS while formalizing its metadata schema to support the accelerated synthesis of knowledge from space life sciences investigations.
NASA’s GeneLab helps scientists understand how the fundamental building blocks of life – DNA, RNA, proteins, and metabolites – change from exposure to the space environment including microgravity and cosmic radiation exposure. GeneLab does so by providing fully coordinated epigenomics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics data (collectively known as omics data) alongside essential metadata describing each spaceflight and space-relevant experiment. The open-access GeneLab repository currently consists of over 300 omics datasets generated by biological experiments, involving various model organisms, that are relevant to spaceflight. In order to maximize the intelligibility of these data, particularly for users with limited bioinformatics knowledge, GeneLab has started processing and analyzing these datasets to generate differential gene expression data and identify biological and physiological pathways that are dysregulated as a result of spaceflight. To aide GeneLab’s efforts to harmonize and democratize space-relevant omics data, over 130 scientists have joined one of four GeneLab Analysis Working Groups (Animal AWG, Plant AWG, Microbe AWG, Multi-Omics AWG) and together helped develop and adopted standard data analysis workflows for all data types available in GeneLab. Currently, the GeneLab Data System includes a data repository with federated search capability, an online controlled-access toolshed powered by "Galaxy" for users to process data with vetted standard workflows, a workspace for data sharing, a data submission portal, and the ability to browse and visualize transcriptomics processed data. The user interface was designed to be accessible to a broad variety of users, including high school and college students who can use it to learn about omics data analysis and space biology. The visualization portal enhances GeneLab’s ability to democratize omics data by removing the need for bioinformatics expertise to interpret transcriptomics data hosted on GeneLab. This presentation will provide an over-view of NASA’s GeneLab including how to navigate the GeneLab Data System and will conclude by providing resources for opportunities to work with GeneLab and NASA at large.